Spoilsport

Spoilsport is a Mike Ball Dive Expeditions catamaran, purpose-built for diving in 1989 and working out of Cairns on the outer Great Barrier Reef and in the Coral Sea. Two hulls, 30 metres long and 10.5 metres across, give her a steadiness no monohull can match — the operator’s main selling point, and the reason weather rarely wrecks the programme. A range of 1,930 km lets her reach reefs more than a day’s steaming from Cairns.

No more than 28 guests are carried by a crew of twelve: master, trip director, engineer, first mate, chef, host, photo/video pro, three divemasters and two general hands. There are fourteen cabins, all on the same deck next to the dive deck, in four grades — from budget cabins with bunk beds and shared facilities to premium cabins with a double or queen bed, an ensuite and an ocean view.

Dive counts run from 12 to 40 depending on trip length: up to 12 over three nights, up to 26 over a week, up to 40 on the ten-night expedition. The dive deck is huge, with three large camera tables and dedicated camera rinse tanks, entry and exit platforms and a freshwater shower on the way out. Most diving is straight off the vessel while moored over the site; two large RIBs handle drift and night dives. Bottom time is not rationed: typically three sites a day, and you can make one dive at each or up to five.

The routes cover three different regions. The Coral Sea means Osprey, Bougainville and Holmes: sheer walls dropping hundreds of metres, visibility up to 40 metres and a controlled shark attraction dive at North Horn, where ten to thirty grey reef and whitetip reef sharks gather. The Ribbon Reefs along the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef mean Cod Hole with its diver-sized potato cod, Steve’s Bommie, Pixie Pinnacle and vast coral gardens. The far expeditions reach Ashmore and Boot Reef on the sea border with Papua New Guinea, and Raine Island, the world’s largest green turtle rookery.

Dwarf minke whales are a story of their own. The Great Barrier Reef is the only place in the world where swimming with the minkes that arrive each winter is permitted, and Mike Ball is one of a handful of licensed operators. The window is narrow — June and July, most often at Ribbon Reef No. 10. An average encounter is two or three whales for about ninety minutes; the operator’s record is 28 whales and a ten-hour encounter. A James Cook University researcher has sailed on these trips since 1996.

Entry requirements are gentle: an open water certification and a six-point medical declaration. A yes to any question about illness, injury or medication calls for a doctor’s dive clearance less than twelve months old — without it you are limited to two supervised dives a day. Anyone with fewer than 15 logged dives, or whose last dive was over a year ago, gets a complimentary orientation dive. The crew speaks English only, and the operator says plainly that without conversational English you will have to sit some dives out: briefings are not replaced by interpreters or apps.

The operator prices in Australian dollars and sells berths in twin-share cabins; premium cabins are sold by the whole cabin only. Discounts: 10% for a non-diver, 25% for a non-diving child aged 8 to 15 (10% in minke season). Sole occupancy costs the berth price plus 80%.